Why this piece, when there are both a Justice Point piece and a JC crafted piece available at iLvl 346? I would consider that a heroic-ready failsafe list could rely on more than 4000 Justice Points, given that you can have 4000 points when you ding 85 and then presumably must spend some number of days at 85 running normals before you are "heroic ready".

I've generally left off crit/mastery and haste/mastery items, primarily to keep the list shorter, but I'll add them where they make sense. I've put this on the list. I've also added a few that I found to be upgrades during my own leveling, like Pauldrons of Unholy Rituals on the stage 1 list.

Strength is a second-tier threat stat, which provides 25% of the parry of parry rating. In other words, a strength/mastery trinket is dual threat/survivability, with poor threat and most of the survivability random. it's the equivalent of:59 parry ratingsome amount of attack powermastery proc

On the other hand, Agility is a worst threat stat but provides 58% of the dodge of dodge rating. Thus, the agility/mastery trinket is the equivalent of:135 dodge ratingsome amount of crit ratingmastery proc

...and in my opinion that makes it better than the strength trinket for a survivability set.

Edit: Updated numbers for level 85 based on Theck's input.

Last edited by Digren on Mon Dec 13, 2010 11:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

Njall wrote:I'll be getting the Panache medallion - if only for the utility of using it in both tanking and ret equipment sets. You are probably right though.

I'm in the same boat. I want to get my ret gear as good as I can while not sacrificing too much tankability, and that will likely mean picking ret-friendly quest rewards since I'll be using money and JP on tank gear.

econ21 wrote:Here's what I have put together, drawing from lists for levels 1 and 2

I've filled out the stage two list based on this, but building one specific set will wait until somebody, somewhere, as a character modeler/profiler working at level 85. Wowhead or Magelo, I'm looking at you!

Njall wrote:I'll be getting the Panache medallion - if only for the utility of using it in both tanking and ret equipment sets. You are probably right though.

I'm in the same boat. I want to get my ret gear as good as I can while not sacrificing too much tankability, and that will likely mean picking ret-friendly quest rewards since I'll be using money and JP on tank gear.

Ahh. I don't have a ret set, and building my tank threat set is always secondary to my survivability set. DPS can hold off if my threat is low (Note: there's no indication yet that my threat is low), but there's not much anyone can do if I'm dying.

Digren wrote:Ahh. I don't have a ret set, and building my tank threat set is always secondary to my survivability set. DPS can hold off if my threat is low (Note: there's no indication yet that my threat is low), but there's not much anyone can do if I'm dying.

True. But I don't have the time anymore to lovingly run instances till I get every darn piece I need for both sets (Essence of Gossamer, I REMEMBER you... I remember you not EVER dropping). So, if I have something that helps me out by multitasking, I'll take it.

Which reminds me, I have to build my elementium dragonling tonight. You are still, however, a Stinking Schnotzzi sympathizer. I hate those guys.

Flight to Peru: £1000Camping gear: £200Native guide: £50Sledgehammer to break down stone door: £12.99Awakening one of the Great Old Ones: priceless.

There are some things man was not meant to know. For everything else,there's Mastercard.

Rule of Thumb: Within an ilvl category, pick items based on the secondary stats you like. For upgrades, slower and higher ilvl is almost always better.

Also a couple of observations/comments about the list(s):

Killshades probably shouldn't be included in the level 2 list, as they require at least one Heroic clear (and more likely, several until you win an orb).

[Twilight Dragonscale Cloak] is probably worth listing on the level 4 list, as it's very comparable to [Wrap of the Great Turtle]. The crafted item has 41 more stamina, the epic has +15 dodge, +15 mastery, and +15 parry from Strength. Since Hyjal has little else to offer past Honored, using the crafted item lets you put that rep grind on the back burner so you can focus on Wildhammer/Ramkahen.

A lot of the commentary, etc., including links to your analysis are still lacking, but I have Cookie's on the correct lists now.

I was really hoping/expecting that they would add chaos orbs to the JP vendor by the time I hit level 85. Damn. I'm disappointed in engineering again when I really want to be excited about all the cool toys.

Njall wrote:Which reminds me, I have to build my elementium dragonling tonight. You are still, however, a Stinking Schnotzzi sympathizer. I hate those guys.

When I finished Uldum (including helping Mr. Schnotzz "check out" thank you very much), I farmed last night just long enough to have the mats for my Dragonling. He's pretty.

What happened to Belloc? He was just gone from the first quest building when I returned from status smashing, when the building exploded. This wasn't explained, was it? Will he come back in a future expansion?

Edit: I really like the Uldum story line, with one exception: When Schnotzz "took me out back" and pointed the big rocket gun at me, I hated that the script made me cower in fear. Instead I would have liked to say "Hey, nice weapon. Guess what, I have one too." and whipped out my Goblin Rocket Launcher, or my rocket launcher tinker. No goblin is going to scare me with engineering tech. I've been a goblin engineer since Schnotzz was in his fashionist little diapers.

Digren wrote:What happened to Belloc? He was just gone from the first quest building when I returned from status smashing, when the building exploded. This wasn't explained, was it? Will he come back in a future expansion?

Considering he's the head of the Reliquary, I'm thinking he'll show up again. Probably about the same time we seen Brann. Where IS Brann?!?! Damnit. He was supposed to be in Uldum but it looks like they gave that job to Harrison... who's a troll expert. What is a troll expert like him doing in Uldum? That's like expecting a Hittite specialist to competently interpret Qin Dynasty statuary.

Sigh, I guess we'll have to go looking for m'man Bronzebeard. Again.

Flight to Peru: £1000Camping gear: £200Native guide: £50Sledgehammer to break down stone door: £12.99Awakening one of the Great Old Ones: priceless.

There are some things man was not meant to know. For everything else,there's Mastercard.

Njall wrote:Where IS Brann?!?! Damnit. He was supposed to be in Uldum but it looks like they gave that job to Harrison... who's a troll expert. What is a troll expert like him doing in Uldum? That's like expecting a Hittite specialist to competently interpret Qin Dynasty statuary.

Sigh, I guess we'll have to go looking for m'man Bronzebeard. Again.

Spoiler in the extra small font.

Didn't you finish Uldum? Brann jumped out of the artifact just after he used it to kill Schnotzz. Then he taunted Harrison and you for being slower than him, yet again.

Why this piece, when there are both a Justice Point piece and a JC crafted piece available at iLvl 346? I would consider that a heroic-ready failsafe list could rely on more than 4000 Justice Points, given that you can have 4000 points when you ding 85 and then presumably must spend some number of days at 85 running normals before you are "heroic ready".

Observe that the 4000 JP when dinging 85 will most likely no longer be an option in a month or two (ie the upcoming tanks haven't killed everything in sight in WotLK).

The pre-heroic failsafe gear set was devised for me and those in the same position - coming from wotlk with a JP cap. But since getting to L85 and not yet running heroics, I have been struck by how starved I am for JP. 70 a day for a daily random is a real come down after drowning in them while running ICC (I got full T10 for all 3 specs, plus both PVP relentless sets). As Yappo says, a long term failsafe pre-heroic list for those levelling new characters should probably include no JP purchase items.

The gear set was theorycrafted from the great gear lists in this forum - in practice, I got to 329 ilevel on day 1 of being 85 with significantly worse gear. I have not yet done the Harrison trinket quest (I used that green diplomacy avoidance trinket instead) and did not know about the agility one. But the strength one features as a good threat trinket in others lists, so in the long term it may be better to acquire a good threat trinket than a mediocre survival one. However, I will wait a while before making that choice.

Why this piece, when there are both a Justice Point piece and a JC crafted piece available at iLvl 346? I would consider that a heroic-ready failsafe list could rely on more than 4000 Justice Points, given that you can have 4000 points when you ding 85 and then presumably must spend some number of days at 85 running normals before you are "heroic ready".

Observe that the 4000 JP when dinging 85 will most likely no longer be an option in a month or two (ie the upcoming tanks haven't killed everything in sight in WotLK).

Do you not get justice points in the Cata leveling dungeons? I would expect a typical leveler to run each of them once - since I would expect them to have quest reward gear from those dungeons.

How many JP do you get from those? I've been for months so I'm not sure. With the numbers I'll adjust my expectations appropriately.

econ21 wrote:The pre-heroic failsafe gear set was devised for me and those in the same position - coming from wotlk with a JP cap. But since getting to L85 and not yet running heroics, I have been struck by how starved I am for JP. 70 a day for a daily random is a real come down after drowning in them while running ICC (I got full T10 for all 3 specs, plus both PVP relentless sets). As Yappo says, a long term failsafe pre-heroic list for those levelling new characters should probably include no JP purchase items.

Oh, 70 a day. Gotcha. Okay then, no more than 1000 JP when you ding 85 it is, then.

In heroics you get 70 JP per boss in the run. I've gotten a full set of Prot gear and am working on Ret gear so far. Heroics are relatively doable with a guild group even when below the level for queueing for the random heroic. We did our first set at ~ilevel 310. All heroics just require a couple of good CC classes, although some require enough DPS at the last boss (for example, Grim Batol has a pretty high DPS requirement).

For the record, here was my stage 1 gear set, an hour after I turned 85. I started on expansion day in Vash'jir, then did Deepholm up to the Harrison Jones breadcrumb. From there I diverted to Uldum, finishing it out. After that I ran Twilight Highlands until I dinged. I did run a few leveling dungeons (Blackrock Caverns twice, Stonecore and Throne of the Tides once each). Oh, and I crept through half of level 82 via archaeology. My starting gear set was mostly iLvl 264, 25-man ICC normal gear.

I just never found a better helm. I had a [False-Face Mask], but honestly given its lack of a meta socket, I just didn't see it as much of an upgrade. I'll get my engineering goggles soon enough.Neck[The Lustrous Eye] : 1250 Justice Points

I also have a [Stoutwaist Girdle], but I don't think it's as good. Even reforging the hit rating to mastery it has lower overall avoidance+block, with more of it as block. The ~250 hit points and a fraction of armor doesn't make up for that.Legs[Sunwatcher's Legplates] : Req. Lev. 83 : Uldum (Quest) The Scepter of Orsis

According to your maths, reforging mastery is better than avoidance. Ok, but what about enchanting and stuff consideration? Would you go for a full mastery enchanting and geming? I've seen few tanks with green gems (stamina + mastery) on blue slot instead of +60 stam, wearing also mastery trinkets even if these are not intended for tanking!Your maths does not take stam into consideration and i'm wonder how to specialize my equipment.

It is likely that tanks who are wearing a DPS mastery trinket are only doing so as they have not had a tanking Mastery one drop yet. The JC Mastery trinket is a prime example.

Also for the armory linked we don't know that for their 11/12 boss kills that they weren't wearing sta trinkets and swap to mastery trinkets for 5 man Heroics (but they probably do wear their mastery trinkets for raids).

oursel wrote:According to your maths, reforging mastery is better than avoidance. Ok, but what about enchanting and stuff consideration? Would you go for a full mastery enchanting and geming? I've seen few tanks with green gems (stamina + mastery) on blue slot instead of +60 stam, wearing also mastery trinkets even if these are not intended for tanking!Your maths does not take stam into consideration and i'm wonder how to specialize my equipment.

It's frankly too early to tell. These are the key responses about this:

Meloree wrote:I haven't read the whole thread, I'll admit, but it's too early to even have any evidence with which to discuss this. 5-man heroics aren't evidence - they're basically trivial to begin with. They started out easy-but-long with 277 gear, and they're AoE-zerg-fests in 346 gear. Is mitigation/avoidance superior in heroics? Absolutely. It was in Wrath, too, but it didn't matter then, either.

Normal mode raids are unlikely to be EH checks - everyone knew that going in. Nobody has done a heroic on live - we don't know what the EH requirements are going to be, we don't know what the throughput damage is going to be like - we can't make conclusions yet, we can't even make educated guesses.

Patience. The real content is coming, we can talk about it when we have something to talk about.

theckhd wrote:Mel's right, you can't base gemming decisions on heroic 5-mans, unless that is your end-game. Raid bosses can hit for 40-60k unblocked, and healers are having a hell of a time. We're definitely far away from the "stack Stam and nothing else" strategy, but even normal-mode instances should be enough to convince you that we're no closer to "stack nothing but mastery."

You still need a good balance of EH and mitigation/avoidance. My gemming strategy so far has been Stam in blue, parry/stam in red, mastery/stam in yellow. Mastery is such a beastly good stat that once I feel I have enough hit points, those yellow slots may go full mastery. But since there are still bosses that can kill me in 3-4 hits, I'm not there yet.

This is a case where my gem recommendation is based on instinct, because the math just plain doesn't exist yet. As it happens my instinct told me the same thing that Theck's did in the quote above.

If you feel differently in this case, so be it. Do what you wish. This is why I put this line at the top of my item enhancement guide:

Digren wrote:Remember, only you, the experienced tankadin, knows what's best for you given your gear and raid role.

But - when the math or raid experience exists that does indicate one method over another, be prepared to abandon your preconceived "gut" instincts and adopt the new methodology. Sticking to and trying to justify outdated theory despite evidence is really the only bad way to gear.